The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-09


 less and infamous congress did nothing to check the conversion of our vaunted s.land of the free and home of the brave" into a combined poorhouse and Botany Bay for all creation.
 Our relations with foreign powers demanded patriotic and statesmanlike action. The just-closed worthless and despicahle congress blackguarded and bullyragged; twisted a stuffed, dime museum lions tail. td Ingalls,, and squeezed Canadian codfish till 1t squawked, q la Hoar and Fry: pro- claimed the inetiiciency of our navy and the defencelessness of our coasts: advertised to all the world every fea- ture and element of our national weak ness, and did nothing to strengthen a single point or protect single in terest.
 Nine great territories, with an az gregate area of 100000 square miles, and population ot nearly, if not quite, 2,0o0.000 souls. have clamored for admission into the Union The infamous and execrable congress, whose adjournment was its only con- mendable act, did nothing toward granting their unquestionable right to statehood; and the grand principle of No taxation without representation" is still trodden under foot by federal satraps and pro-consuls in region larger than the whole thirteen orig inal states of the republic, and every attribute of citizenship is still denied to nearly as many freeborn Ameri- cans as fought and won the battles of the Revolution, and reared Liberty's altars in the new world.
 The Mormon question, the Indian i question, the silver coinage question, the extradition question, the threaten ening labor question, the question of restoring American shipping to its once proud pre-eminence on the seas, and a score of other momentous ques- tions involving the political. moral and material welfare of halt hemi sphere, urgently pressed for solution i and settlement. The most contcmpti- ! ble congress that ever met i'll Wash ington did nothing in regard to any l of them but champ demagogic wind and fill the Capitol with noise and bad 1 English.
 But all its sins of omission dwindle into nothingness beside those of it's commission. All the flagrancy of it's not doing the things it did not do is lost in the outrageousness of some of 1 those it did do. Chief among these 1 iniquities is the so-called inter state commerce act. It should have origi- hated in lunatic asylum and passed ! in a Haymarket anarchists riot. It is a mad tumble of ignorance, usurpation and communism, which, if it could be enforced, would unsettle every busi- ness interest of the continent and spread ruin from Cape Cod to Yuba Dam. Fortunately for the country i it's enforcement is Impossible: 1. Because it is unconstitutional. and will so be decided whenever the first case under it goes before the supreme court of the United States.
 II. Because of it's inherent mon- strosities and preposterous absurdi- 1 ties
 ] The act, or alleged act, is unconsti- tutional in attempting to grasp the control or regulation of the internal commerce of the various states. The constitution of the United States grants to congress the power to regu- late commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes, but has nowhere be- slowed upon it authority to regulate domestic commerce carried on wholly within the body or limits of state In the case of Gibbons against Ogden, the great leading case on the subject, the supreme court, through Chief Justice Marshall, decided that, under the constitution, "the internal com merce of state may be considered as reserved for the state itself" Section of this iniquitous bill is in direct antagonism to this principle of the constitution.
 The act, or alleged act, is unconsti- tutional in attempting to wipe out trial by jury. The constitution of the United States guarantees trial by jury in all actions at common law, where the amount in controversy ex- ceeds twenty dollars. All the griev- ances enumerated in section s of the act are causes of action at common law, and our courts and juries can hardly be charged with any lack of readiness to enforce the extreme rig ors of the law against railroad com panies and corporations in general. But sections 9, Is and 16, in glaring violation of the constitution, propose to override or abolish the right of jury trial and substitute for it the ar bitrary decision of an irresponsible political commission.
 The act, or alleged act, is unconsti- tutional in attempting to compel a witness to criminate himself. The